on revisiting Dachau

I’ve been here before. And I’ve carried all those memories with me. So I told myself. So I left you to wander alone and wandered off myself.

I went to the guard tower again. I stared at the trench below it. The rain swirled all around. I pictured how on some dark night, some desperate man might’ve hurled himself across that ditch, right within sight of that tower, floodlights and guns at the ready. Was he trying to live, or trying to die? There was no answer in the rain. Just me standing there.

I went to the central chapel again. I stared at the two beams of the floating cross. I bowed at the twisted metal crucifix. The metal man on it stared back at me. I looked down at the stones placed at the altar’s steps. Who put them there? Were they wanderers like me? No rain now, only a cloying dryness. And no answers still. Just me.

I went to the crematorium again. I walked along the bare rooms. I saw the ovens standing open. I looked at the concrete below, the plastered walls. The placards told me bodies had been stacked here like firewood, to be burned. I tried to picture it all, furrowing my brow. Strangers walked by me. What were they thinking of it all, thinking of this man standing there frowning? Did they see a pilgrim? An affectatious boor? No answers. Only murmurs in odd tongues. Just me.

I walk out along the avenue of trees. Who put these here? Now trees grow here. The rain’s gone. The breeze is sweet. Is that the sun trying to come through? I see you from afar, and you grow before my eyes as you walk. I see your faces, I see your smiles, I see your names, and you say mine too. You wave at me. It’s not just me. It’s not just ghosts. What will you learn from this? What did you see? Where will you go with it? Will you carry ghosts too? No answers for now. But it’s not just me. The sun is out now too. Is life not so much more than death?